Dramatic rescues continue as quake toll crosses 25,000
Rescue teams continue search efforts despite diminishing hopes amid freezing temperatures.
KAHRAMANMARAS: Rescuers pulled a two-month-old baby and an elderly woman from the rubble on Saturday, five days after an earthquake devastated Turkey and Syria, leaving more than 25,000 dead.
Tens of thousands of local and international rescue workers are still scouring through flattened neighbourhoods despite freezing weather that has compounded the misery of millions now in desperate need of aid.
Officials and medics said 21,848 people had died in Turkey and 3,553 in Syria. The confirmed total now stands at 25,401.
However, Austrian soldiers and German rescue workers called off their searches in southern Hatay, citing a difficult security situation and clashes between local groups, without giving further details.
In the midst of overwhelming destruction and despair, miraculous tales of survival continue to emerge.
“Is the world there?” asked 70-year-old Menekse Tabak as she was pulled out from the rubble in the southern city of Kahramanmaras — the epicentre of Monday’s 7.8-magnitude tremor
— to applause and cries praising God, according to a video shared on state broadcaster TRT Haber.
In the city of Antakya, a twomonth-old baby was found alive 128 hours after the quake, state news agency Anadolu reported.
A two-year-old girl, a sixmonth pregnant woman, plus a four-year-old and her father, were among those rescued five days after the quake, Turkish media reported.
Meanwhile, in southern Turkey, families clutched each other in grief at a cotton field transformed into a cemetery, with an endless stream of bodies arriving for swift burial.
Compounding the anguish, the United Nations has warned that at least 870,000 people urgently need hot meals across Turkey and Syria. In Syria alone, up to 5.3 million people may have been made homeless.
A border crossing between Armenia and Turkey opened for the first time in 35 years on Saturday to allow five trucks carrying food and water into the quake-hit region.
Turkey’s disaster agency on Saturday said nearly 32,000 people from Turkish bodies are working on search and rescue efforts. In addition, there are 8,294 international rescuers.
However, Austrian soldiers on Saturday suspended rescue operations in Hatay over a “worsening security situation”, an army spokesman told AFP.
A similar decision to halt rescue operations was taken in Germany by the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (TSW) and an NGO specialising in helping victims of natural disasters, ISAR Germany, according to an NGO spokesman.
The UN rights office had on Friday urged all actors in the affected area — where Kurdish militants and Syrian rebels operate — to allow humanitarian access.
The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is considered a terrorist group by Ankara and its Western allies, announced a temporary halt in fighting to ease recovery work.
In Syria, where years of conflict have ravaged the healthcare system and parts of the country remain under the control of rebels, aid has been slow to arrive.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus arrived on Saturday in the quake-stricken city of Aleppo, state media reported.
Tedros said he was accompanying “emergency medical supplies of around 37 metric tonnes”.
The Syrian government said it had approved the delivery of humanitarian assistance to quake-hit areas outside its control. UN Secretary-general Antonio Guterres has urged the Security Council to authorise the opening of new cross-border humanitarian aid points between Turkey and Syria.